There was another shooting yesterday.
This time it was in a church. In His house.
God’s house.
But why wasn’t He there?
I’ve asked this question many times in my life. I asked it as a young girl when I saw Columbine High School on TV. I asked it as a high schooler when I watched the Twin Towers collapse. I asked it again as the news came across my iPhone about the teachers and children massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And when I heard about Hurricane Katrina, and the death of Caleb Schwab, when a friend gets cancer, and the Orlando night club, when I see someone I love walking away from the Lord, and Las Vegas, and now again in the little Southern Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas and so many other tragic, senseless deaths.
God, where are you?
I am sure that there were many, including Jesus’ disciples, who asked this very same question on the day when Jesus died on that cross on Calvary. Wasn’t this supposed to be the Messiah? Wasn’t this supposed to be the one who came to fulfill the law? But now, the worst had happened. Now Jesus was dead.
And God? Where was He?
Just like the disciples, we can’t see past the dawn of the third day. And just like the disciples we are weeping in pain, again, at the tragic loss of innocent life – life that wasn’t meant to be taken. And yet we know what happened on the dawn of that third day, don’t we friends? We know Who won.
We know Who’s already won it all. Because He was there that day and He’s already there at the end.
Tragedy and pain will always be a part of this side of heaven friends, the fall made it so. Mankind will always have the gift of free will, we serve a God Who loves us enough to give us the CHOICE to love. But that also leaves us with all of the other choices to make… including the bad ones.
But there is one other choice we have today sweet friends, and that choice is to trust. To trust in a God Who is already on the other side of the darkness and Who calls us today to fall into His peace and embrace His grace in the fear. Fear of gunmen, fear of the weather, fear of loss, and fear of fear. Don’t let the enemy plant any more lies in your heart tonight, friends. Trust in the peace of His presence and the sovereignty of His perfect love.
“… perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18
This article originally appeared on From Blacktop to Dirt Road